This page assumes you know what a MMDVM (Multi Mode Digital Voice Modem) is, but not how to use it or put it together. Also, that you have had some experience with the Raspberry pi. Click HERE to learn about the MMDVM. This article will be technical. However, if you studied for and passed your ham radio tech license (key word being, studied) this page will be easy to follow and use. Soldering skills will be a plus as well. Soldering and playing with electronics just goes hand in hand.

After following this article you will be able to put together a multimode amateur digital repeater that can be connected to the internet for world wide digital communication. Through proper coordination, given digital’s IP connectivity and features, Ham radio operators around the world can build fully connected systems, allowing remote parts to have access to RF communication. A connected digital environment allows us to leverage MESH networks like Broadband Ham Net or ARDEDN in events where the internet may not be reliable. Think about it, the ham community can build a large network that has the ability to be “offline” and still allow for clear digital voice communication. How cool would that be! If its easy and cheap to build and can be done in areas with no internet, that’s helping humanity. Baby steps though, lets just get this digital node built.

7 Items needed:

*ZUM is handled by one amazing guy, Bruce, and a small support team. Orders are handled directly through emails to Bruce. The devices are ~$100, and take a few weeks to ship. Payments are handled over paypal

Choose a radio carefully keeping in mind duty cycle and heat dissipation, EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. A cooling fan will be an absolute must! Motorola radios are great, but have drawbacks if you don’t have access to programming software. The old Icom/kenwood sitting in the corner collecting dust is a viable option. Many people are using the Yaesu DR-1X repeater for duplexed operations.

A cable to connect from your radio(s) to the MMDVM*

This can be one of the most difficult parts to the process. There is no single article or how to for making the cable, this is where your inner geek, and solder hands can come to play. Micronode MMDVM does offer pre-made cables for their device, but they are expensive.

Other items include, A dummy load for testing, a power supply, and an antenna for when you are ready for the air. Please help keep the finite airwaves clear of testing and un-needed traffic, use a dummy load during all your initial tests, and any future tweaks you may need to do.

Ability of up to 4 different digital modes, P25, DMR, D-Star, Yaesu Fusion, with on the fly PTT access. Meaning, just key up your radio and it handles the rest.

A web interface that can be accessed from a smart phone or computer to control the node remotely with real-time activity.

A “high-powered” hotspot or repeater. Please expect other to use your node, sharing is caring!

The layout will look something similar to this, excluding the Arduino (courtesy of f5uii.net)

Building the MMDVM node:

Burn the image to the SD: Download and burn the Pi-star image to the SD card. On windows I use Etcher. Its the simplest and easiest burning tool I have found to date. If you don’t have windows, or have never burned an image to an SD card before, there are many tutorials online

Plug the MMDVM into the PI: Depending on which MMDVM you go with, plug it into the PI. If you have the ZUM MMDVM, simply plug it into the GPIO pins of the Raspberry PI. (See top picture)

Make the cable: Here’s the hard part, making the cable……

Essentially, you will need to look in the manual of your radio for its pinout. The table below is for connecting Motorola CDM Radios to the MMDVM

MOTO TX –PIN 3 PTT

MMDVM — PIN 7 BLUE PTT

MOTO TX — PIN 5 FLAT AUDIO IN

MMDVM — PIN 6 GREEN TX AUDIO

MOTO TX — PIN 7 GROUND

MMDVM — PIN 4&5 ORANGE/YELLOW GROUND

MOTO RX — PIN 11 FLAT AUDIO OUT

MMDVM — PIN 3
WHITE RX AUDIO

MOTO RX — PIN 8 COR/COS

MMDVM — PIN 2 RED COS

MOTO RX — PIN 7
GROUND

MMDVM — PIN 4&5 ORANGE/YELLOW GROUND

You will end up with something like this….

The DB25 connector was used in this case because I can unplug the MMDVM and plug in the DMK URIx for analog all-star. You can choose to wire directly without a connector or use a DB9 for example. The choice is yours.

Program the radio: Pick a frequency and program your radio(s). Not sure what frequency to use? Here is the Texas Band plan. Just make sure you don’t over step any local repeaters or national calling frequencies. In other words, please use common sense. As part of programming your radio, if you are using CDM/commercial radios, make sure all your settings are set to FLAT AUDIO. Here are some resources that helped me program my CDM radios…

Boot the PI up: Now that you have the cable made, radios programmed, and the Pi-star image burned to the SD card, put the SD card in the PI and boot it up with a network cable plugged into your local network. Leave the radio(s) unplugged from the MMDVM for now. We dont want to accidentally key the radio with no antenna or burn anything up with bad SWR etc…

Navigate to the dashboard: If your PI is booted and has network connectivity all you need to do is open a web browser on a computer or your phone and go to…

http://pi-star/admin/

Default credentials– Username: pi-star Password: raspberry

Setup Pi-star:This video by W1MSG is an excellent video that goes over the initial setup of pi-star.

Basically the video walks through filling out the required fields, enabling modes you want and configuring those modes. Pi-Star is an amazing, super easy, straight forward tool. Even if you have never used it before, once you are logged in, its easy to get around the interface.

Key up and test it: Once pi-star is configured, go to the dashboard and plug your radio(s) into the MMDVM, making sure you have a dummy load or an antenna plugged in. Key up on the frequency you chose on the digital mode you chose. You should see on the dashboard in Green “RF” and the red PTT light on your MMDVM light up.

One snag I ran into was by default TXINVERT was set to on or ‘1’. I was hearing digital noise, but nothing was decoding it. I fixed it by going into expert mode in pi-star (pi-star.local/admin/expert) and setting it to off or ‘0’ under MMDVMHost. TXINVERT and RXINVERT depends on the radio you use. This may require trial and error.

Adjust the pots: If everything seems to work at this point, the next step is to tune the mmdvm’s adjustable audio pots. This is a very tedious process and requires A LOT OF PATIENCE. Most of the time, the pots are already set from the factory and usually don’t need adjusting. But if you are seeing constantly high BER or not getting audio back, you will need to adjust the pots. There are 3 ways you can tune the pots to achieve desirable BER/Audio. DMR is the most picky and requires even more patience.

Open firewall ports: Now to open ports on your firewall. This will be required in order to take advantage of internet linking. I will just cover the ports that are required to be open, not how to do it. If you have opened ports for WIRES-X, this is no different.

Here is the N5AMD Repeater. The radios were in a trash pile destine to be destroyed. In a digital world, analog radios are being thrown to the side for many commercial 2-way companies. They have been revived and now serve the community helping hams learn about the world of digital radio. From top to bottom…